The Importance of Family

Everyone knows how difficult it is to get a complete family picture, one where you have every single person, from the young to the old, and once you’ve managed to capture one of those rare moments where everyone is together, the first thing you’d want to do is frame it up. But what if the photograph of all the people you loved just didn’t look quite right? It may have all the right people, but the background may be a bit messy or have unwanted elements in it, or maybe the lighting may be a tad bit too dark. Have you ever thought about still capturing the moment, but maybe in a different medium? Well, that’s exactly the idea Melissa Ko had.

For a relative’s birthday, Melissa wanted to present to her a family portrait but the only picture she had was taken in a restaurant where lighting was suspect and with an obtrusively bright Exit sign hanging in the corner. Taking this photo to Leslie Low however, allowed Melissa to keep all the elements she loved (the people) while removing those that she didn’t like to much from the original photo.

In her conversations with Leslie, Melissa was able to have the perfect family portrait she always wanted, even requesting for the birthday lady (who the portrait was for) to be subtly highlighted upon suggestion by the artist. Also, Melissa was able to customize the overall colour scheme of the painting to ensure that it would sit nicely in where it would be displayed.

So what did Melissa get then? A wonderful painting of her loved ones each hand drawn and painted in details the photograph could hardly show and that conveyed Melissa’s “hope that every time she looks at this painting, she will remember the importance of family and the love that we share”.